And now, the end is near….
That sounds good. I should put it in a song.
That can wait, though. The real reason you’re reading this gibberish is to find out what the results are going to be on Saturday.
First up, Wales against Italy. Wales have scored 5 tries to Italy’s 4. That makes you think it might be close! Until you realise that Wales have conceded 7 to Italy’s 24. Which is a bit of a problem for Italy. (Nae shit, Sherlock). Italy played better against Scotland than they had in the other games, so is this the time they can back it up with another good performance? Probably not.
Wales have struggled a bit this year. Thumped by Ireland, scraped past Scotland, somehow losing to England despite scoring all the tries and never really looking like they would beat France. So, can Italy pull off a huge shock and get past Wales in Wales?
Let’s ask Predict-A-Bear!
Answer: Nah. Might be closer than expected, but probably Wales by 15.
Next up is Ireland against Scotland. (Sob). This was going to be The Year! The year to end (Way too many to count) Years Of Hurt! A brilliant start! And then everything turned Scottish. A disappointing – to say the least – defeat in Wales, thumped by France, then showing what we can do against Italy, before deciding that things were far too easy and that we should turn Scottish again.
Never mind, it’s only Ireland. The team that has been reinvigorated under Farrell The Elder. The team that beat the All Blacks. The team that thumped Wales, gave France their closest game so far and who managed to be disappointed in only scoring 57 points against 15, 14, 13, 12 man Italy. They have scored 20 tries to our 10, conceded 3 to our 11, Sexton’s on his Neverending Farewell Tour and have the might of Ulster (cheering them on from the sidelines).
So. Any hope for Scotland? Well … Ireland’s scrum looked strangely out of sorts against England. They also seemed a bit too rushed at times. And Finn bloody owes us one! So of course, Toonie sticks him on the bench. But probably none.
But let’s find out from Predict-A-Bear!
Answer: Nah. Much as I would love to be wrong, Ireland will win this fairly comfortably, by about 15 (at least). Can’t see us even getting any sort of bonus point. (Sobs again.)
Finally, the main event! France against England! France at home and going for a Grand Slam against a (fairly) average England team. (I mean, come on, WE beat them!) Eddie’s playing mind games again, although the only people he seems to confuse with these are his players. They have looked fairly toothless in attack (7 tries scored – and they’ve played Italy!), wonder boy Smith hasn’t quite lived up to the hype (but he will), the midfield has a Manu-sized hole (but then it frequently does) and Jack Nowell will probably end up hooking in the front row. And please (don’t) let Joe Marler take more throw ins. On the good side, Maro’s been a right annoying bastard on the pitch.
But France! They have everything: they can play tight; they can be expansive as (cliché alert) only France can. They have the best player in the world, and a few others who would probably be in a world XV, strength in depth and Shaun Edwards as defence coach. They haven’t perhaps scored quite as many tries as their play would suggest and had to tough it out against Wales.
So who will win?
Predict-A-Bear to the rescue!
Answer: A France win and Grand Slam!
Predict-A-Bear whispered sweet nothings into BorderBoy‘s ear.
Onna telly this week
Friday 18th March
| Bulls v Scarlets | 17:10 | BBC2 Wales / Premier Sports 2 |
| Glasgow v Edinburgh | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Newcastle v Leicester | 19:45 | BT Sport 2 |
Saturday 19th March
| Lions v Munster | 12:00 | RTÉ2 / Premier Sports 2 |
| Wales v Italy | 14:15 | BBC1 / iPlayer |
| Sharks v Zebre | 16:30 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Ireland v Scotland | 16:45 | ITV |
| France v England | 20:00 | ITV |
Sunday 20th March
| Stormers v Cardiff | 12:00 | S4C / Premier Sports 1 | ||
| Wales v Italy (U20s) | 14:00 | BBC1 Wales / iPlayer / Website | ||
| Ireland v Scotland (U20s) | 17:00 | BBC1 iPlayer / Website | ||
| France v England (U20s) | 20:00 | BBC1 iPlayer / Website |
Ovally Balls 
Think the beard cushioned the blow.
LikeLike
… Which even the Saffer commentator didn’t think should be a card (“not even a penalty”), which is what happened last week for a much more severe offence.
LikeLike
3 tries apiece at half time, but Saints are ahead with penalties and conversions. 24-17.
LikeLike
Bristol down to 13 to two yellows (could have been at least one red?). Saints nearly at 40 points. Hutchinson has been excellent today – why is he not in the Scotland squad?
LikeLike
Cos there aren’t any games coming up.
Lions beat Edinburgh 15-9, 2 tries to none. Some decisions were made by the reffing team that could be interpreted. Some quite good defence from the Lions, Edinburgh close a couple of times.
LikeLike
Really happy with this weekend’s results from a Saffer perspective. I think it’s still early days and our boys will learn to play in arctic conditions and your boys will get more comfortable in the heat and at altitude (although that’s possibly more tricky and dependent on schedules) so for me the URC is looking like a fabulous competition. Still think the Irish provinces are stronger at this stage, but lots of decent sides overall.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haven’t seen much of the action other than the Stormers and some of the Sharks match last night, but it’s looked pretty good!
LikeLike
Channel 4 in the UK can pick one of the 8 Heineken Cup games next week to show. Naturally, they’ve picked the all-English tie between Sale and Bristol.
LikeLike
Congratulations to your boys, Deebee.
I saw the game up to the Bradbury card when we had family arrive.
It’s a hugely disappointing performance and result for Edinburgh, but I hope we’ll learn from it.
Good luck to your lads for the rest of the season.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, Leinster came, saw, and conquered.
Munster were horsed out of it – fairly pissed off with the ref – Coombes injured at a ruck by a clear side entry from Toner. Can’t argue with 4 tries to 1….
Thankfully, I wasn’t there to witness it – I’d still be an hour from home now probably…. I had to go over to Castleisland to give them the Munster Junior League Division 3 trophy…. and I’ve a trip to Corca Dhuibhne for a U16 game tomorrow.
Generally, we seemed off the pace – I’m not really an adherent of that “pashun” trope… you know – we/they wanted it more…. but a certain level of intensity/concentration is required…
For all the idea that – some may still have – that Leinster play all singing and dancing rugby – they really beat you up upfront and only throw the ball around when they’ve created mismatches in numbers… they did that successfully tonight….
LikeLike
Regarding the Toner incident, apparently the ref’s positioning didn’t help matters.
LikeLike
Reading around it sounds like Embra got totally shafted by the officials.
I thought the Bradbury card was very soft – he collided with a player but there was no way he deliberately tripped or tackled him off the ball. The penalty would have sufficed.
Earlier the home TMO spent a lot of time going through footage desperately looking for evidence to get an Edinburgh player sent off, not once but twice – no one on the field had noticed anything, but with Bradbury the TMO finally got his man.
The worst was to come, from what I’ve read. I haven’t seen the game after the Bradbury card, but if the Embra forum (who don’t do ref calling), the Glasgow forum (who do ref calling), the press I’ve read and by the looks of it TomP of all people are saying we got done over, then it’s a pretty shite state of affairs.
LikeLike
So, I haven’t read back yet but we went to Chateauneuf-du-papes after our gigondas wine tour. There was a wine festival on in the main square and paid our 10 euros to enter as complete wine barbarians. But a strange thing happened. Rather than just kind of drinking the wine and saying ‘yeah that’s some good shit’, we smelled it first, swished it round our mouths and spat it out so as not to get too pissed. Then we made comments on the balance of fruit, tannins, acidity and alcohol and, fuck me, decided that we’d actually learned something .
Back to the hotel for a sleep and then to a community hunters event (20 euros each) in the village. Deer stew and gratin dauphinois. Fairly quiet to begin with but we eventually got invited over to eat with some French hunters. Mrs Craigs said that my French improved with alcohol and true enough one guy came out to just us in English and another told me about his son being born yesterday and his dad dying last year. I was not prepared for this but we hugged it out. They all support Castres down here and guessed that I am an ex prop.
12 hours ago I could order beer and croissants at a push. Wtf happened today? Did i become cultured? It’s probably a blip.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I also explained The Troubles to my new French friends in French so now they have a complete understanding.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I think that video from a couple of days ago of the guy kicking himself in the nuts is an accurate metaphor for Brexit – right down to the reactions from the onlookers.
Having said that, it’s probably still possible to move to France from here. I’d love to move to Montpellier for a while, I think.
I’m glad you are getting in there Craigs, that is the best part, talking with locals – I got some work done by our local blacksmith, he made a couple of things, I took drawings to him and he made the tools I needed.
Anyway, his dad was in the workshop one day and he told me about his escape from Franco’s Spain, over the mountains and border to get to France. It was pretty epic, he was an antifascist and on the run.
The first person he met on the French side was the Blacksmith’s mother. They’d been together since that day.
LikeLiked by 2 people
refit, trisk, the Munster prop’s not in the ruck there so Toner needn’t come from the ref’s right as that guy reckons. Still in at the side mind. There was a similar, even worse, one on Friday night when the Dragons prop cleared out at Thomas du Toit of the Sharks.
ticht, didn’t watch the whole game so don’t know if you got “done over” but if Gnecchi’s reffing there are bound to be bad decisions. The Boffelli knock-on decision was wrong as was the winger’s reaction. As I said above, the Lions defended pretty well and Edinburgh had chances.
Watched a couple of schools games from a SA schools festival yesterday evening – I’m both boring and recovering from Covid – and there was a lot of back chat to the refs, a lot, even at that level.
LikeLike
Didn’t watch all 8 hours but 4 hours 43 minutes in:
LikeLike
Framesby’s an Afrikaans-medium school in Port Elizabeth, Selborne an English-medium school in East London. Ref shows his bias by talking about Framesby’s provocation to the Selbornians but not the other way round.
LikeLike
Leinster Schools Cup final today – Posh Boys v Another Set of Posh Boys at Donnybrook. There’s a gathering of lads from the underdog Posh Boys school having a get-together in a garden on my road and they’re singing adapted football songs warming up. It’s good to hear future Fianna Fail/Fine Gael ministers ramped up on Coca-cola and belting out their tunes.
LikeLike
One for fans of literary and political history – Conor Cruise O’Briens (great?-)grandson is playing in the back row for heavy favourite Posh Boys today.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wonder if Boa is ready to head north to try to save some concrete…
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/apr/03/cumbernauld-town-shopping-centre-debate-brutalist-architecture
LikeLike
What I am very happy about is that the Lions and Bulls both beat sides packed with current Test players and neither of them has a current Bok in their ranks. Some excellent 7s Boks (who aren’t playing 7s anymore) and some recent ones like M Steyn and M Coetzee, but these are sides with some stunning talent emerging and some experienced campaigners guiding them through.
LikeLike
BB – I’m generally in favour of conservation of historic buildings, but Brutalist ones can all be razed as far as I’m concerned.
LikeLike
Ticht might remember this advert (and there’s even a rugby connection).
LikeLike
I’ve never seen the word ‘Cumbernauld’ not preceded by ‘HMRC’ before. Shudders.
LikeLike
@BB – Mrs CMW still calls it ‘What’s it called?’
LikeLike
When I think about it she actually goes for the full ‘What’s it called, Cumbernauld’ every time, Cumbersome as it it.
LikeLike
Is the rugby connection that David ‘Kid’ Jensen played in the centre for the Radio 1 staff team?
LikeLike
LikeLike
Was more thinking of the fact that Bill McLaren did part of the voiceover.
LikeLike
Final France update. If you go to the south of France to taste wine, by plane, only one pair of jeans, 2 t shirts and one jumper will suffice. Otherwise you might find yourself stuck in Marseille airport wearing 2 jeans, 2 t shirts, a jumper, a jumper tied round your waist, a jumper tied round your shoulders and a jacket over that. Plus all you pockets will be full of socks and pants because you bought 8 bottles of wine, stuffed it in the suitcase with lots of bubble wrap and just about made your weight allowance for ryanair.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Pay the extra baggage fee:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-33492512
LikeLiked by 1 person
€11 a kilo is worth the risk Tomp.
LikeLike
Oh, I started craving a steak bake when everything was shut on Sunday so all that cultural pretentiousness was just a blip after all.
LikeLike
Not really Craigs, you weren’t shoveling kebabs and necking cheap lager (I’m assuming) – a lovely steak bake puts you into good cultured territory.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What’s a steak bake by the way?
LikeLiked by 1 person
On another note, Mrs Deebee is away for a couple of days. Does being on my second bottle of wine make me twice as cultured? I like to think so. And I had a stunning rare steak and potatoes to wash the first bottle down with. Well, roast beef crisps anyway. Slightly soggy having been opened on Saturday in the rain.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Think I washed the crisps down with the wine. Ah fuck, you know what I mean.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have no idea what a steak bake is either.
Crisps with a nice rare steak? What kind of heathen are you?
LikeLike
I have ideas about what a steak bake is, but they’re of such a nature that I wouldn’t get close enough to one to test them out.
LikeLike
I’m a bit concerned for Deebee’s welfare when Mrs Deebee is away and business lunches aren’t happening.
BB, didn’t Kenny Logan appear in some ad campaign? It probably wasn’t for Cumbernauld as he was a Stirling laddie iirc
Cumbernauld was host to the South of Scotland Electricity Board’s technical college where they trained all of their apprentices, my brother and several mates included.
Actually, I think I’ll draw back from the story I was about to tell about Cumbernauld
Craigs, what you need is a large suitcase, the clothes you stand up and a long coat with many pockets, perhaps a top hat with bungees too, you could get a dozen bottles on a long coat and top hat, I reckon
LikeLiked by 1 person
I bought a stake bake at a motorway service station on the way back from Leeds.
I bit a corner off it and this dark brown sludge ran out, luckily I was able to catch most of it in a paper cup, but some of it landed on my hand and it burned like fuck.
Never again, not even a cold one,
Actually, especially not a cold one.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This might be old fashioned, I have no idea, but I love steak with green peppercorn sauce.
With chips
and broccoli
LikeLike
LikeLiked by 1 person
Crisps with a nice rare steak? What kind of heathen are you?
What I was trying to say (but doing a bad job of in hindsight) is that I didn’t have steak and tatties at all, just roast beef flavoured crisps. Did have the wine though. Feeling it a bit this morning, especially having to stand for 40 minutes in a queue to pick up my new passport.
LikeLike
Which is not to say that I’m not a heathen (and faced with the level of toxic Christianity that my neighbour tries pouring down our throats on a daily basis, heathenism sounds lovely) it’s just that I wasn’t being a heathen last night. Unless you think that crisps don’t go with good red wine. In which case you may have a point.
LikeLiked by 2 people
And speaking of passports, I’m trying to renew my UK one. What a palaver. I’m due for a flying visit to London and the Midlands in June (may have an evening open for drinks at some stage, hopefully?) and my UK passport expires in late November. I’ve been trying all morning to see if it’s still valid for this trip, finally spoke to a human (I think) who responded that yes, I’d be able to get into the UK on those dates with my current UK passport, but didn’t know if I’d be able to leave on it. And seemed stumped as to what to do next. Hoping I’ll be able to get a new one before I’m due to fly to avoid visas and airport queues.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@OT – I’ve had steak bakes before from the looks of it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Deebs
It might be a geography think, but can’t you just order a new one onine?
This service is surprisingly efficient!
LikeLike
Deebs – I don’t think crisps go with steak either!
Would definitely be up for drinkies in the Midlands. Whereabouts will you be?
LikeLike